Paper contributed at the Workshop on East Asian Social Policy
(13th – 15th, January, 2005. the University of Bath, U.K.)
The Re-examination of East Asian Welfare Regime
- Methodological Problems in Comparing Welfare States and the Possibility of
Classifying East Asian Welfare Regimes
Kim, Yeon Myung
Associate Professor, Dept. of Social Welfare, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
e-mail: ymkim@cau.ac.kr
ABSTRACT
Over the years, there has been increasing scholarly attention, both internationally and
domestically, focused on the characteristics of social welfare and the possibility of
defining the 'welfare regime' in the East Asian region. However, these discussions tend
to take Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typology as a frame of reference, which is a
framework principally applied to the western welfare system. This has inevitably led to
a methodological mistake. While employing the Esping-Andersen criteria of the welfare
state typology for the discussion of the welfare regime in the West, scholars use
different criteria to define East Asian welfare regime. It is a mistake to discuss different
welfare phenomena in the one language of welfare regime. To avoid this
methodological mistake, it is critical to build a new set of welfare state classification
criteria that will help us make a correct comparison between the western welfare state
and its East Asian counterpart. In this regard, this article argues that the EspingAndersen's welfare regime criteria have limits in applying the characteristics of the
1
welfare state in East Asia, and that we need to restructure them to take into account the
different attributes commonly found in the East Asian welfare system. This will help us
to explore possible ways of defining an East-Asian welfare regime. For this, this article
emphasizes such factors as the amount of tax expenditure, occupational welfare, and
private income transfers between family members as distinctively found in the East
Asian welfare system. As suggested in this paper, the new framework of the welfare
regime approach should be applicable to both the East and the West welfare systems, as
this will not only shed light on applying the Esping-Andersen's criteria in a correct way,
but will also help us identify the attributes of the East Asian welfare system as different
from the western ones.
I. Attentions to Social Welfare in East Asian Countries
The timing and rate of economic development vary between countries, but the
rapid speed of economic growth which East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea and
Taiwan, showed between the 1960s and the 1980s, was distinctive enough to attract
academic attention from the international community of social sciences, especially since
the 1980's. Naturally, such attention has focused primarily on asking what kind of
economic and political conditions enabled the so called ‘East Asian Miracle' as
demonstrated in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore etc., (Johnson, 1982; Amsden, 1989;
The World Bank, 1993; Shin, 1999) and on the major features of the economic and
industrial policies that contributed to this miracle in each East Asian country (Chang,
2002a).
In the 1990s, the boundary of this attention was expanded, with social welfare
in this area becoming a new field of academic research. The background of this new
trend can be categorized by the following three factors:
Firstly, there are the academic interests in the relationship between economic
growth and social welfare. As the theme of industrialism presents, the development and
the promotion of the welfare state are conditioned by industrialization and economic
growth, which is shown in case of western welfare state history. However, the same
pattern does not seem to apply to the East Asian welfare system. It seems obvious that
2
the development of the state welfare in this region did not progress in tandem with their
exceptionally high speed of economic growth. Scholars came to question how East
Asian countries have reached the level of advanced countries with regard to the social
performance index like infant mortality rate and average life span, despite their
relatively low public welfare expenditures (Tang, 2000: 1～7). This phenomena has led
to another question of whether there is a ‘secret' veiled in East Asian countries, which is
hardly found in Western ones: is it possible to attain economic growth without high
expenditures on social welfare, unlike in the West? (Jacobs, 2000).
Secondly, there are a series of studies focusing on the characteristics and
institutional design of the East Asian social welfare system and the socioeconomic
features shown in its developmental course. The principal question of these studies is
how to define the characteristics of East Asian social welfare, if each country in this
region has their own institutional characteristics and sociopolitical environment, as
distinguished from the West, affecting the shape and the developmental course of their
social welfare (Jones, 1993; Goodman and Peng, 1996; Goodman, White and Kwon,
1998).
Lastly, after Esping-Andersen(1990)'s classic description of welfare regime
typology, there have been many studies motivated by the question of which type of
welfare regime East Asian countries can be categorized into (Esping-Andersen, 1997;
Holliday, 2000; Gough, 2001). Until the 1980s, the international comparative studies of
welfare states tended to include only Japan in their discussions. From the 1990s, this
western society-based welfare regime study began to expand its horizon to include other
East Asian countries like Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. This triggered a new academic
interest that attempted to define the East Asian welfare regime. Reflecting this trend,
Korean scholars recently have heralded a variety of ‘debates on the characteristics of the
Korean welfare state'. These debates are principally based on Esping-Andersen's
typology and try to identify which kind of welfare regime Korea may belong to (Kim
ed., 2002).
This paper follows the last trend among these three approaches. However, the
purpose of this study is not to add another welfare regime model to the EspingAnderson's classification of the welfare state. Since the comparative studies on East
Asian social welfare are still in their nascent stage, enough data to delineate the
3
characteristics of East Asian welfare regime in convincing ways is hardly available.
Particularly, we have an absolute lack of comparable and ‘processed' data relevant to
social welfare, which is indispensable to comparative studies.1 This does not mean that
it is impossible or premature to embark on a comparative study of social welfare in this
region.
Above all, the foremost concern of this paper is the necessity of in-depth
reexamination into the methodological merits and limitations in applying to each East
Asian country the criteria of Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typology - those used to
measure ‘de-commodification' and ‘stratification' such as benefit level, the number of
occupationally distinct social insurance programmes and so forth - as a foundation for
the classification of welfare regime.
As will be further discussed in Chapter I, much conventional literature that
defined the characteristics of welfare state regime in East Asia show a serious
methodological mistake in applying the welfare regime typology suggested by EspingAndersen. In particular, I think that various criteria which Esping-Andersen adopted for
the classification of Western welfare states produce a substantial problem in
understanding the characteristics of welfare regime in East Asia.
Having these points in mind, this paper focuses on the following two
objectives: First, it examines the methodological merits and limitations of EspingAndersen's welfare regime typology, which still has powerful influence on comparative
studies on welfare regimes, and then points out what kind of methodological questions
are implied in the literature about existing welfare regime typology, including the
studies on East Asian social welfare.
Second, this study aims to assert that the attributes and criteria of the EspingAndersen's welfare regime typology need to be expanded and recomposed to discuss
1
In the case of Japan and Korea among East Asian countries, we can obtain a considerable
amount of detailed comparative data relevant to social welfare from ‘OECD Social
Expenditure Database' and ‘OECD Health Data'. But this is impossible in the case of other
East Asian countries. Although the data relevant to social welfare expenditures spent in
Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are available from ‘The
Cost of Social Security' as published by ILO, there are no references published after 1989. In
the case of Taiwan, it is almost impossible to get any data comparable with other countries.
Recently, the USA's Social Security Administration began publishing reports on social
welfare system in each country on the basis of data reported by International Social Security
Association (SSA,2003). But these reports describe only the actual profile of institutional
welfare without containing any statistical data indispensable to comparative studies.
4
any possibility of defining distinctive welfare regimes found in East Asian countries.
This is because it is almost impossible to appropriately identify the characteristics of
welfare regimes in East Asia in simple and passive ways referring to the EspingAndersen's regime criteria.
II. Significance of Welfare Regime Typology from the Perspective of
Comparative Social Policy
1. Concepts and Significance of Welfare Regime
In the field of comparative social policy, the research focusing on the types of
welfare state can be divided into two standpoints: one highlights ‘quantitative aspects'
between countries such as the level of welfare spending and the timing of introducing
social welfare programs, while the other emphasizes ‘qualitative aspects’ between
countries such as the production, distribution and institutional aspects of welfare. The
former standpoint is represented by the first generation of researchers in comparative
social policy, such as Cutright and Wilensky (1975). According to their criteria based
on the level of welfare spending or the timing of introducing social welfare programs,
countries that spent relatively large amounts of money in welfare expenditure and
introduced welfare programs in the early days were often classified as ‘welfare-state
leaders.' On the contrary, countries that spent relatively small amount of money for
welfare and introduced welfare programs late in time were classified as ‘the welfarestate laggard.' It is well known that their theoretical backgrounds are based on
convergence theory which assumes a linear development of the welfare state.
On the other hand, the latter standpoint, which focuses on the qualitative aspect
with regard to the classification of the welfare state, has been much diversified
depending on the criteria applied. For example, the classic approach of Titmuss (1974)
to the welfare state suggests that the welfare model can be categorized into three
models: ‘the residual welfare model', ‘the industrial achievement performance model'
and ‘the institutional redistributive model,' according to how the market, family and
state satisfy citizen's needs. It is proven that Titmuss’ approach has a great impact on
5
follow-up comparative studies in the welfare state. However, this kind of approach
reveals a weakness in addressing why welfare states differ in the qualitative aspect and
thus remains simply at ‘conceptual construction’ because detailed attributes and criteria
of the welfare state classification have not yet been established.
The classification of the welfare state based on a qualitative approach reached
its culmination with the publication of Esping-Andersen's ‘The Three Worlds of Welfare
Capitalism' (1990). His great influence on comparative studies in the welfare state is
reflected in Christopher Pierson’s assertion that “much of the burgeoning literatures
about comparative welfare state as published in the 1990s can be seen as a ‘settling of
accounts' with Esping-Andersen (1998:175)."
While criticizing the conventional theories of quantitative approach as having
failed to look at the nature of the welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990:19～20),
Esping-Andersen redefined it by new concepts like de-commodification and
stratification and suggested ‘qualitative differences' between different welfare states in a
convincing way. It can be said that, since then, most discussions about the classification
of the welfare state have been subjected to the influence of Esping-Andersen's work.
With regard to the essence of this paper, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of
welfare ‘regime'. One of the advantages of his typological comparison of the welfare
state is that the role of ‘market' and ‘family' in welfare provision is also combined as the
criteria of categorization along with ‘state welfare.' As he stated with regard to the
concepts of the welfare ‘regime', “.regimes refer to the ways in which welfare
production is allocated between state, market and households” (Esping-Andersen,
1999:73). In other words, he did not apply the classification of the welfare state only to
the state welfare or individual social policies, but also to welfare regimes that
considered the roles of the market and the family in welfare provision.
Therefore, the theory of welfare regime as conceptualized by Esping- Andersen
is distinguished from the conventional qualitative research on the welfare state. As
pointed out by Esping-Andersen (1999:73～74) and examined critically in this paper as
well, there have been many criticisms with some being irrelevant to his arguments. But,
this is due to a misunderstanding or confusion on the correct concept of welfare regime.
2. Theoretical Significance of Welfare Regime Typology
6
The methodology Esping-Andersen adopted in his work (1990) is a ‘typology'
which constructs an ideal type of welfare state by using the notion of a welfare regime
by which individual cases of the welfare state can be studied in a comparative context.
According to his accounts, this typology can be useful for three reasons (EspingAndersen, 1999:73): First, this typology allows for greater analytical parsimony and
helps us see the forest rather than myriad trees. Second, if we can gather together
various species according to similar crucial attributes, it is possible for the analyst to
more easily identify some underlying logic of movement and maybe even causality.
Third, typology is a helpful tool for setting up and testing hypotheses. If these
advantages of typology are incorporated into the comparative study of the welfare state,
we can outline the welfare regime typology as having the following two meanings at a
theoretical level:
First, if a certain country is classified as a specific welfare regime, we can
roughly infer the characteristics of the welfare ‘regime' in that country, i.e., how the
state, market and households are connected to each other for welfare provision, and
what the characteristics of the state welfare system are, although there is no detailed
information about the welfare system of the country or the combination of these three
components (i.e. state, market and households) in that welfare regime. EspingAndersen's welfare regime theory offers a ‘bird's eye view' on far-reaching characters of
social or historical circumstances of a society (Arts and Gelissen, 2002:139). For
example, if mankind is classified into three races of European, African and Asian
simply according to their skin color, we can identify their physical and biological
characteristics on an approximate level, although it may be difficult to identify detailed
individual features.
Secondly, welfare regime theory doesn't come to an end simply with
typological classification of the welfare states, but may be connected to the theory of the
welfare state's transition. Actually, it may not be easy to clarify the understanding of
certain changes in social regimes by typology itself mainly due to its methodological
nature. But Esping-Andersen puts a special emphasis on the sociopolitical ‘internal
logic' that comprises the three welfare regimes and thereby attempts to make a
7
combination between a typology focused on static aspects and transition theory focused
on dynamic aspects.
The combination of the welfare state typology the transition theory was
materialized in the Welfare State in Transition (Esping-Andersen, 1996). In this book,
Esping-Andersen adopted the typology of ‘welfare regimes' and thereby attempted to
understand the restructuring path of the welfare state under the influence of
socioeconomic pressures such as de-industrialization, globalization and the ageing of
society, which have been on the rise since the mid-1970s. Although his attempt to
combine the welfare regime with the theory of the welfare state's transition is used by
other researchers as a framework to explain the different restructuring path of individual
welfare states (Pierson, P., 2001), it seems to have only a partial influence as has
emerged new viewpoints to account for the restructuring of the welfare states.
For instance, there have been two emerging frameworks to account for the
differences in the restructuring path of the different welfare states since the mid-1990s:
one is the viewpoint that emphasizes the nature of the power structure in each country
(difference in power concentration) and the characteristics of the institutional design in
the welfare system (Bismarck type vs. Beveridge type) (Bonoli, 2000), while the other
is the approach based on ‘the varieties of capitalism' that considers industrial relations,
employment structure, and the financial and welfare system as a cluster of integrated
regimes in order to explain various restructuring paths in the welfare states (Ebbinghaus
& Manow, 2001; Hall & Soskice, 2001). Recently, these two viewpoints are claiming
more scholarly attention around the world. Instead of elaborating the viewpoints, we
will focus on the regime typology of the welfare state, since the major purpose of this
paper is to explore the correct use of the Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typology
and the possibility of applying his typology to East Asian countries.
III. Four Methodological Issues of Welfare Regime Typology
1. Limits as a ‘Snapshot’
8
The welfare regime ‘typology' attempt to classify different welfare regimes
around the world into a few categories involves a fundamental limitation. It is like a
snapshot for our contemporary society which shows a certain profile of a historical era
at a specific point of time, while failing to take a diachronic and historical approach to
the development of the welfare state or welfare system. Hence, the point in time for
typological classification is very critical, because a country may be classified as
different welfare regimes depending on the ‘point in time'. For instance, with regard to
the British welfare state that was classified as a liberal regime in the mid 1980s, EspingAndersen delineates the following: “Had we made our comparison in the immediate
post-war decades, we would almost certainly have put Britain and Scandinavia in the
same cluster"(1999:87). That is, a country could be defined as belonging to a different
regime depending on the point in time for categorization.
Likewise, the welfare regime typology also shares the same limits in capturing
the ever-changing welfare appearance of East Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan,
which demonstrated a rapid expansion of state welfare or an ‘advance' into the welfare
state from the 1990s. While looking at recent changes in welfare across Asian countries,
Hort and Kuhnle commented, “chronological latecomers (East and Southeast Asian
countries) in social security legislation were not the latecomers in terms of
‘developmental time'. Rather than arresting or retarding welfare state development, our
Asian Countries even preceded European nations in the sense that they adopted state
welfare programmes at lower levels of modernization (2000:168)." In addition, in a
diagnosis of recent changes in Korean welfare policies, Kim, Yeon Myung (2004)
insists that “owing to the rapid expansion of stage welfare from Kim Dae-jung
Administration, the Korean welfare state, from its beginning in an undeveloped country
after World War II, has now become one that is most likely to advance.”2 As noted
above, the welfare regime typology has its own methodological limitations in correctly
2
In Korea, for the last few years, the expansion and change of the state welfare was so rapid
even to the extent that international academic worlds could not keep up with the changes.
This phenomenon is quite frequently noticed in recently published works on Korean welfare
system, and more in those published overseas. See Mishra & Kuhnle et. al' (2004) as an
example of using outdated data of the recent Korean welfare system.
9
capturing the circumstance of ‘regime shift.' So if a country under a rapid change is
defined as a specific welfare regime, careful attention must be paid to the danger of
defining the current features of the welfare system by theory. This may hamper doing
justice to the current characteristics of the individual welfare state.
2. Debates on the ‘Attributes' of Classification Criteria
There may be various types of welfare regime depending on which ‘attributes'
researchers value most and how to measure these attributes. The attributes that EspingAndersen adopted for his classification are seemingly well established in the welfare
regime approach, but sometimes they can cause misunderstandings. In terms of
attributes for typological clustering, he used only three attributes: ‘de-commodification',
‘stratification' and ‘de-familialism'3.
Therefore, if we use different attributes from Esping-Andersen's, we can make a
different classification of the welfare state. For instance, Korpi & Palme (1998)
classified the type of welfare state into five categories according to the three criteria of
‘bases of entitlement to welfare system', ‘benefit level principle' and ‘whether there are
cooperative industrial relations for governing a social insurance program.' Louis (1992)
also classified the type of welfare state into three categories according to gender
attributes, i.e. ‘women's unpaid work' such as caring for children and elders at home or
housework. As adopted by Korpi & Palme and Louis, these attributes of typological
classification of the welfare state may trigger disputes on whether their attributes are
appropriately reflecting the welfare reality, but there is a risk of committing a
methodological mistake in applying typology itself.
3
The attributes for the welfare state classification which Esping-Andersen adopted in his book
‘The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism' were de-commodification and stratification. One
of the most convincing criticisms of this approach was that his attributes failed to take into
account ‘gender' as an unnegligible one for classification. This is an issue intensively
criticized by Western scholars who have feministic viewpoints. Of course, Esping-Andersen
admitted his failure to consider family (women)'s welfare burden, i.e. gender issue in terms
of the most critical defect of his classification of the welfare regime (Esping-Andersen,
1999:92), and indeed added the issue to his later work of welfare regime theory (1999).
While considering the gender issue as important, however, he insists that it is not necessary
to add another to the three welfare regime categories which have already been established.
10
Thus, the thins that become a focal point in using the classification of the
welfare state are the kinds of typological attributes researchers have chosen and to what
extent the measurement criteria, as a specification of those attributes, is valid in
reflecting the different welfare reality in different countries. This is because the
methodological limits of the welfare state classification are found in the fact that the
type of welfare state in a country can change depending on the typological attributes
researchers have chosen. i.e., it is critical how well the typological ‘attributes' adopted
by Esping-Andersen, Korpi & Palme and Louis are formulated to reflect the different
nature of welfare production and redistribution structure in different welfare states. In
this context, I think it is necessary to complement, expand and develop, rather than
discard, the attributes adopted by Esping-Andersen, since his three attributes seem more
outstanding in classifying welfare regimes than those of anyone else.
These attributes may be also equally applied to defining the nature of the
welfare regime in East Asian countries. As Esping- Andersen points out (1999:73～74,
88), one of the methodological confusions in the debates on the Esping-Andersen's
welfare regime typology does not reside in the criticisms on the ‘validity' of the three
attributes. Rather, many scholars insist that besides the Esping-Andersen's three, there
should be 'a fourth regime' but by using different attributes of classification. This
confusion is possibly attributed to misapplying his methodology of welfare regime
typology. We will discuss this issue further in the following section.
3. Issues of Ambiguous Cases
It seems inevitable that ideal type as an abstract conception of reality produces
‘ambiguous cases' that does not fit into any relevant type. In this case, there are two
solutions: categorization as either a ‘hybrid type' or an entirely different type.
First, if a certain country does not correctly fit into a specific type set by a
researcher in the comparison of welfare regimes or welfare state, this country is often
categorized as a hybrid type manifesting a combination of specific attributes. Here, we
meet another challenge of whether the hybrid type could be classified as ‘a distinct
regime.' If yes, we can make 7 logical combinations of Esping-Andersen's welfare
regime types as follows: 1) the liberal welfare regime, 2) the conservative/corporatist
11
welfare regime, 3) the social democratic welfare regime, 4) a combination of 1) + 2)(e.g.
Japan), 5) a combination of 1) + 3) (e.g. Britain), 6) a combination of 2) +3) (e.g.
Netherlands), 7) a combination of 1) + 2) + 3) (e.g. South Korea)4.
If these ambiguous cases are classified as a hybrid type, we have to give up the
methodological merit of typology, i.e. the merit of abstracting and reconstituting reality
into comparable concepts. Besides, we may need to give up the 'economics of theory' of
‘explanatory parsimony' and ‘analytical parsimony', as a tool for understanding reality.
Hence, as pointed out in the previous section, it is quite critical in welfare regime
typology that we "weigh the relative importance' of different and even conflicting
attributes" which were used as criteria for categorization, rather than try to classify
ambiguous cases as a specific type (Esping-Andersen, 1999:88).
Secondly, if there is any occurrence of ambiguous cases in the typological
classification, those cases may be categorized as certain different welfare regimes, not
as a hybrid type. In this context, many recent studies have advocated ‘a fourth welfare
regime' apart from the ‘Three Welfare Regimes' as mentioned by Esping-Andersen. For
instance, Mitchell (1991) & Castles (1996) developed logic that Britain, Australia and
New Zealand should be categorized as a fourth 'Antipodes' model of welfare regime.
Ferrera (1998) insists that Southern European countries like Spain and Italy should be
classified as a fourth 'Mediterranean' model.' In a similar vein, there are some arguments
that East Asian countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan should be categorized as another
discrete model of a welfare regime called ‘East Asian Model.' (The case of East Asian
countries will be further examined in the following section.)
The arguments that advocate a fourth additional welfare regime model can be
valid or invalid depending on which attributes are used as classification criteria.
However, there are some critical questions from the angle of methodology. If a fourth
model should be set up in addition to the Esping-Andersen's ‘three welfare regimes’, we
have to employ the same attributes as typological criteria suggested by Esping4
This argument is not based on the fact that by the early 2000’s Korean welfare state has
attained all the characteristics shown in the three different welfare regimes of the West.
Rather it is based on a sort of ‘forecast' that Korean welfare state will have all of these traits
in the future when it enters the mature stage of the welfare state. For details, see Kim (2001,
2002). It may sound unrealistic, but Kuhnle (2004) points out the possibility that the Korean
welfare state would show similar traits as found in a social democratic model like Northern
Europe.
12
Andersen. Otherwise, researchers who attempted to set up a fourth model have to
develop other criteria of classification to ‘reclassify' the countries which were already
categorized by Esping-Andersen. However, it is interesting that most researchers who
advocate a fourth model do not attempt to reclassify other countries according to the
criteria they set up. Therefore, it is one of methodological mistakes that a fourth model
as classified by other attributes in the aspect of quality than those used by EspingAndersen is added to the ‘Three Welfare Regimes.' That is, this additional model means
that we discuss ‘a qualitatively different phenomenon' in a same logical context
(Esping-Andersen, 1999:74).
4. Question of Comparison between Mature and Immature Welfare State
The question of comparison between mature and immature welfare state is one of
issues posed when we apply welfare regime theory to East Asian countries. Both Korea
and Taiwan, but not Japan, have immature welfare states compared to the western
welfare states. In certain aspects, as Tang (2000) insists, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore
may not belong to any kind of welfare ‘state' in a Western sense. Here arises a question
of whether it is justifiable in methodological context to compare East Asian countries
with immature state welfare with Western countries with mature state welfare on an
equal level.
In the recent ‘debates on the characteristics of the Korean welfare state' Kim,
Yeong-beom (2002) argues that the features of the Korean welfare system are a simple
reflection of its immaturity, and thus it is meaningless to give any significance to the
immature system and discuss welfare regime type.5 This dilemma appears in EspingAndersen himself as well. He reveals certain methodological confusion by arguing that
Japan belongs to a ‘hybrid type' between liberal and conservative welfare regimes,
while emphasizing the ‘immaturity' of the Japanese welfare system as compared to the
Western world. Esping-Andersen accedes that “institutionally speaking, any attempt at
5
Furthermore, in domestic or international academic conferences with regard to discussion
about Korean welfare state, it is often claimed among even domestic scholars that Korea has
not reached any welfare ‘state', so it is unreasonable to compare the welfare state type of
Korea with that of other countries.
13
labeling the Japanese welfare state is premature, since it has not yet sunk its roots."
(Esping-Andersen, 1997:179).
The concept of welfare ‘regime' adopted by Esping-Andersen, in my opinion,
focuses on the relative weight that each state, market and household takes in welfare
provision, as well as their way of combination. That is why it seems unconvincing if we
declare an impossibility of comparison between different welfare regimes simply
because a certain country is underdeveloped in state welfare. In other words, the case of
Korea and Taiwan or the case of Singapore and Hong Kong has some common features
as found in the fully industrialized Western society. Accordingly, it is possible to
compare these countries with Western ones from the angle of welfare regime theory
which includes welfare provision by household and market, as well as state welfare.
So far, we have discussed a methodological mistake in using the welfare regime
typology which was first suggested by Esping-Andersen. If the welfare regime typology
has considerable methodological limits, is it reasonable to ‘discard' the typology? 6 In
particular, is it justifiable to give up three attributes and the criteria that help measure
the attributes as used by Esping-Andersen from the angle of the categorization of East
Asian welfare regime? We will discuss these questions in the following chapter.
IV . Review of East Asian Welfare Regime Typology
Except for the so-called ‘Confucian Welfare State' (Jones, 1993) that lost
persuasive power due to criticism of its limits in cultural explanation (Goodman et. al.,
1998; Cho, 2002), existing discussions on the characteristics of social welfare or
welfare regime in East Asia can be summed up in the following three mainstreams:
First is the standpoint that believes Esping-Andersen's typology criteria are
valid, and thus thinks it is possible to classify the welfare regimes of East Asian
countries like Korea, Japan and Taiwan by means of the existing ‘Three Welfare
6
Since the ultimate concern of this paper is the possibility of applying welfare regime typology
to East Asian countries, we will stop any further discussion about Esping-Andersen's
typology. It is often claimed that his welfare regime typology has various questions as a
methodology to identify the characteristics of each country as welfare state or a way to
identify the characteristics of existent welfare state. For further discussions, see Kasza(2002)
and Arts and Gelissen(2002).
14
Regime types.’ Included in this standpoint is Esping-Andersen's work. He classified
East Asian countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan as a ‘hybrid case' between
conservative and liberal welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1996, 1997), while
categorizing them as conservative welfare regime in other literature (Esping-Andersen,
1999: 91～92). Cho (2002) holds that Esping-Andersen's typological criteria and
methodology are still valid, but that East Asian countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan
belong to liberal welfare regimes, not to conservative or corporatist welfare regimes as
prescribed by Esping-Andersen. However, as demonstrated in Chapter Ⅴ of this paper,
the passive application of the attributes and the measurement criteria adopted by
Esping-Andersen to each of East Asian countries leads to the failure to correctly read
out the traits of East Asian welfare regime, and hence requires an additional expansion
and reconstruction of the criteria.
Second, there is a case of categorizing East Asian countries as a fourth model
based on different attributes in addition to Esping-Andersen's ‘Three Welfare Regimes.'7.
On this line of argument are stances which classify East Asian countries as ‘the
Productivist World of Welfare Capitalism' (Holliday, 2000; Holliday & Wilding, 2003)
and define three East Asian countries (i.e. Japan, Korea and Taiwan) as the ‘Japanfocused welfare model' (Goodman & Peng, 1996). Although having no intention to
categorize the East Asian welfare regime, Miyamoto (2003) describes Japan as a
country standing somewhere between the ‘Three Welfare Regimes' and ‘the
developmental state.' Among Korean scholars, one who follows this line of argument is
Jung (2002) who suggests that East Asian countries including Korea should be
classified as ‘the developmental welfare state.' This logic that explicitly or implicitly
describes East Asian countries as a fourth welfare regime have a methodological
mistake in applying welfare regime typology, as shown above in the claims that
ambiguous cases unfit for the ‘Three Welfare Regimes' should be additionally classified
as a fourth model of welfare regime.
Last, there are some studies that focus on identifying the profile of social
welfare in (South) East Asian countries and its political /economical environment found
7
All of the researchers included here don't give any explicit comment about the ‘Three
Welfare Regimes’ adopted by Esping-Andersen, but are common in a sense that they discuss
possible welfare models for East Asian countries on the implicit assumption of the ‘Three
Welfare Regimes.'
15
in common among them without adopting the concept of welfare regime. The studies in
this line include Tang(2000), Goodman et. al(1998), Jacobs(2000) and Gough(2001)8.
They describe the profile of social welfare systems in each East Asian country and also
the political and socioeconomic environment surrounding the welfare system, that is, a
variety of characteristics related to social welfare from different angles such as the
government's anti-welfare attitudes, social policies subjugated to economic policies,
lack of comprehensive welfare system, weak input of public funds available for welfare
funds, vulnerable civil society and labor movement, and powerful roles of the company
and the family in welfare provision9. It is no wonder that these characteristics they
described comply with the actual profile, but involve a methodological problem.
The methodological problem implicitly inherent in these studies is that they
cluster Western countries into one group as having a common characteristic and then
compare them with all East Asian countries as clustered into another group as having a
common trait. That is, under the ‘implicit' assumption that the western welfare states are
characterized by as single entity with a common experience or there are common
experiences in the development of the western welfare states, these studies tend to
compare the features of the western welfare states with those of East Asian welfare
states, in the hope that the features of East Asian social welfare systems could be
defined.
8
9
Gough(2001) accepts the typological attributes and methodology adopted by EspingAndersen and attempts to classify welfare regimes of Southeast Asian countries by using
several different attributes. However, he still just sums up the characteristics of social welfare
in East Asian countries.
The political and socio-economic characteristics related to each of East Asian countries as
pointed out by most Western researchers reflect Western intellectuals' viewpoint about
Oriental World, in the 1990's. If they had lived in the 1920's or 1930's and researched each of
East Asian countries in the 1990's as future, could they assert that there were differences
between Eastern and Western welfare regimes? For example, a phenomenon called
‘government's strong intervention in market' as pointed out in common by many western
social researchers, when they discuss the characteristics of economic development and social
welfare in East Asia, is also shown commonly in most underdeveloped European countries
and the USA at the initial stage of industrialization (Chang, 2002b). In this sense, it is very
interesting that Hort & Kuhnle(2000) suggest the necessity of correctly recognizing East
Asian social welfare systems and the surrounding political and economic features with regard
to ‘the difference in the timing of industrialization' between the Eastern and Western world.
Jacobs(2002) also takes a similar approach by sharing some critical point with Hort &
Kuhnle. Seeing from the recent speedy change of Korean welfare system, it can be assumed
that 'the European journey into the welfare state' can be regarded as ‘a universal path' which
is also applicable to East Asia in a broad sense.
16
However, as demonstrated by many researchers in comparative social policy,
Western welfare regimes do not have any traits in common but show significant
differences in the experience of historical development. Accordingly, if we accept the
usefulness of welfare regime theory suggested by Esping-Andersen, a logically and
methodologically valid approach is that each of the liberal, conservative/corporatist and
social democratic welfare regimes should be compared respectively with East Asian
welfare regimes (if they are a single unit), instead of making a simple comparison
between East Asian welfare regimes and the Western welfare regimes.
Finally, Takegawa Shogo(2003) analyzed the welfare regime of Japan
according to different criteria from the Esping-Andersen's attributes and asserted that
the question of which of these three welfare regimes Japan may belong to is the ‘matter
of falsehood'. Rather, he emphasized that the correct application of welfare regime
theory is “analyzing welfare state within the structure or history in which it situates".
Also, he points out that the passive application of Western welfare regimes to other
countries is likely to fall into a ‘welfare orientalism.' As an alternative for the welfare
classification, he claims that it is necessary to analyze Japanese welfare regime based on
the three frameworks of national goals (welfare politics), benefits state (redistribution
structure) and regulatory state (regulatory structure). If we extend this argument to other
East Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan and then develop the criteria on which an
international comparison can be made between the West and the East, it would be
possible to define the East Asian welfare regime based on the attributes which differ
from Esping-Andersen's criteria.
V. Hypothetical Discussions about East Asian Welfare Regimes: Expansion and
Reconstitution of Welfare Regime Criteria
De-commodification, stratification and de-familialism, which Esping- Andersen
used as the criteria for the classification of welfare regimes, are the critical attributes in
defining the qualitative difference individual welfare states show regarding the welfare
production and distribution structure as shared by the three components: the state,
market and household. Thus, in exploring the possibility of defining the East Asian
welfare regime, Esping-Andersen's criteria should be expanded and reconstituted by
17
adding other criteria that can reflect the traits of the production and distribution of social
welfare as often shown in East Asia10, and thereby the types of East Asian welfare
regime should be compared with Western ones on the same dimension as the ‘Three
Welfare Regimes.'
1. Reconstitution of State Welfare Criteria
Based on income maintenance programs such as pensions, sickness benefit and
unemployment benefit within the framework of state welfare programmes, EspingAndersen constituted corresponding criteria and classified diverse types of welfare
regime by measuring their effects on de-commodification and stratification. Among the
attributes excluded here, what are critical as the element of welfare provision in East
Asian countries are two institutional systems: occupational welfare and the level of tax
expenditure.
It is well known that the scale of welfare provided by enterprise in Japan, Korea
and Taiwan is greater than that of the Western world (Shikawa & Pempel, 1996; Pempel,
2002). This is pointed out by most researchers who discuss the characteristics of the
recent East Asian welfare regime. According to the OECD's criteria of ‘enterprise
welfare cost' (OECD, 2001), enterprise welfare can be divided into: ‘mandatory private
social expenditure (MPSE)' that employers should assume in accordance with relevant
laws, and ‘non-obligatory company welfare cost' (also known as ‘voluntary private
social expenditure (VPSE)' according to OECD's criteria), which employers may pay at
their discretion in accordance with collective agreement. In Korea, the typical examples
of MPSE that companies shall bear are represented by retirement allowance
(functioning as pension + unemployment benefit), paid maternity leave and paid
sickness leave, which are paid via the public social security system as seen in Western
world. For this reason, Korea's MPSE level reaches 2.84% of its GDP, which is higher
10
There is not much reliable data for the comparison of East Asian countries, inevitably leading
to a difficulty in making logically strict comparison between them. This limits our discussion
here to a very hypothetical, question raising level.
18
than that of other East Asian countries including Japan11 (See item (C) on Table 1). In
Japan and Taiwan, it is not mandatory that a company bears retirement allowance in
favor of their employees, and other benefits like maternity or sickness benefit are paid
to every beneficiary by means of social security systems like medical insurance, not by
the company (SSA, 2002).
The level of tax expenditure, referred to by Titmuss as ‘fiscal welfare', is the
institutional system which is not yet included in existing welfare regime theories. In the
realm of social welfare, a variety of tax reduction and exemption systems belong to the
category of tax expenditure and have influence on disposable income just as income
maintenance programmes do. In the USA, there is a huge amount of tax expenditure. In
this regard, the USA is often called a ‘Hidden Welfare State (Howard, 1998).’
Unfortunately, there is not any reliable data for the comparison of the tax expenditure
scale in each country, because they are still under estimation by OECD (2001:21～23).
In Korea, the level of tax expenditure amounts to 0.43% of its GDP. If we could acquire
reliable international comparison data on the tax expenditure scale, this should be
enough to add tax expenditure as a new criteria of the classification of welfare regimes.
As discussed above, if tax expenditure (even provisional) and voluntary private
social expenditure (VPSE) are estimated together in addition to obligatory company
welfare cost, the social welfare expenditure rate of Korea increases as much as 5.27%
from 7.14% (A) to 12.41% (G), which approximates that of Japan, while the
expenditure rate of social welfare in the USA increases from 15.8% (A) to 23.4% (G),
narrowing the gap with Sweden (see Table 1)12. This means that it is important to
reexamine the conventional methodology of measuring de-commodification level
measured only by income maintenance programmes in order to categorize welfare
regimes in East Asian countries, because the traits of welfare regimes in East Asia can
11
12
It is known that Japan is a country with large scale of company welfare. But data in Table 1
show that Japan scores lower value of F(C+E; pure private social expenditure) than Britain
and Sweden. This table is the data that OECD used for calculating pure private social
expenditure, but doesn't indicate any detailed source or estimation method for Japan. Thus, it
is justifiable that this table is not available as reliable data, although such unreliability cannot
be confirmed.
It is necessary to note that the values listed in this table are not those reported from each
country to OECD via ‘official channel.'
19
be correctly captured only by including occupational welfare and the size of tax
expenditures into Esping-Andersen's criteria.
<Table 1> International comparison about the percentage of each social expenditure in
GDP(1997)
% as of GDP
Korea Japan USA Sweden
UK
Gross Public Social Expenditure(A)
7.14
15.1
15.8
35.7
23.8
Net Public Social Expenditure(B)
7.46
14.8
16.4
28.5
21.6
Net Mandatory Private Social
Expenditure(MPSE)
2.84
0.5
0.3
0.2
0.3
Net Publicly Mandated Social
Expenditure(D=B+C)
10.30
15.3
16.8
28.7
21.9
Net Voluntary Private Social Expenditure(E)
2.11
0.4
7.8
1.9
2.9
Net Private Social Expenditure(F=C+E)
4.95
0.9
8.1
2.2
3.2
Net Social Expenditure(G=D+E)
12.41
15.7
23.4
30.6
24.6
Source: The base year for Japan, USA, Sweden and UK is 1997 (OECD, 2001:28), and
that for Korea is 2001 (Ko, Gyeong-hwan et. al., 2003:157).
Note: 1) Net Public Social Expenditure = Gross Public Social Expenditure(general
accounting + social insurance benefit expenditure) - taxation at contribution and benefit
+ tax expenditures
2. Variety of Stratification
Given the East Asian circumstances, it is necessary to review the stratification
concept adopted by Esping-Andersen, who noted that state welfare plays a role in
keeping market status segmented, in the following two aspects:
First, we have to review stratification effects between beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries of state welfare, not the effects among its beneficiaries. Regarding the
conservative/corporatist welfare regime, Esping-Andersen argued that there is a
stratification effect called ‘status-segmentation' due to the social insurance system along
occupational lines, while there is a stratification effect called ‘dualism' between public
assistance beneficiaries and social insurance beneficiaries under the liberal welfare
20
regime (Esping-Andersen, 1990:58～64). These effects include the stratification shown
within the people covered by state welfare. On the contrary, Japan and Korea show a
strong stratification between state welfare beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. In South
Korea, only 20～25% of non-standard workers who account for 53% of the whole
wageworkers are covered by the state welfare system such as public pensions, health
insurance and unemployment insurance. Furthermore, only 15.9% of non-standard
workers in Korea are covered by retirement allowance which is stipulated in the Labor
Standard Act (Korea Contingent Workers Center, 2002:118～119).
In the case of Korean public pensions, some 3.6 million people, who account
for 36% of the total insured, are in fact excluded from the programme. Likewise, it is
recently reported that non-standard employees in Japan are more or less excluded from
welfare benefit (45.3% from unemployment insurance, 55.7% from health insurance
and 57.1% from employees pension insurance) (MHLW, 2001:123). These phenomena
show a sort of stratification between ‘insiders' and ‘outsiders' in the state welfare
scheme of East Asian countries, manifesting different quality from the concept of
stratification in the western welfare states as identified by Esping-Andersen.
Second, in case of Korea and Taiwan, very little effects of stratification are
noticed in public pensions and health insurance, the pivot of social security system as
demonstrated in social democratic welfare regime. It is well known that the Taiwanese
and Korean health insurance systems have been entirely transformed from an insurance
societies-based, multi-payer scheme to a unified single payer one (Ku, 1998; Kim,
Yeon-Myung et. al., 2001). This means that status segmentation as typically
characterized in the western conservative welfare regime is not seen at all in the case of
the social insurance systems in both Korea and Taiwan. Korea's national pension was
originally designed on the basis of considerable social solidarity, so Korea shows quite
lower degree of status segmentation than Japan, a trait which is usually shown in
conservative welfare regimes (Kim & Kim, forthcoming). That is why Korea and
Taiwan show different stratification effects in health insurance and public pensions
from Japan. This means that we have to reexamine the conventional discussions of
Esping-Andersen or Goodman et. al. (1998) who assume the social insurance systems in
these three East Asian countries are the same type. As in the case of state welfare, non-
21
mandatory occupational welfare systems also produce the stratification effects. We will
discuss this further in the following section.
3. Reconstitution of Market-related Criteria
In terms of market-related criteria, Esping-Andersen focuses on how much
private pension and health insurance an individual purchases from the private insurance
market. Here, the criteria that require the expansion of the Esping-Andersen's include
non-mandatory company welfare benefits offered by the company and the scale of
private insurance market.
First, since the expenditure of non-mandatory company welfare in both Korea
and Japan is not little, accounting for as much as 6.5% and 8.1% of total labor costs
respectively13, it is necessary to include that expenditure as one of the welfare regime
criteria. In particular, we need to note a new stratification among workers caused by
non-mandatory company welfare. In Korea, there has been a serious segmentation
regarding the occupational welfare benefits between small/medium-sized companies
and large-sized one, and between standard and non-standard workers. For instance,
there was little gap in company welfare cost per worker between large-sized and small
or medium-sized companies in 1987, while the gap became widened as much as 1.8
times in 2001. Moreover, almost all non-standard employees are excluded from the
benefits of non- mandatory company welfare. In Japan, stratification effects are found in
company welfare because of remarkable differences in non-mandatory welfare costs
between large-sized and small/medium-sized companies. In 2002, it was reported that to
take 100 as the average monthly cost of non-mandatory welfare per capita which is
spent by large-scale companies with 1000 or more employees, companies with 100-300
employees scored 46.0 and companies with 30-99 employees just 32.4 (MHLW, 2002).
Second, the scale of private insurance purchases can also be used as one of
traits in East Asian welfare provision. The ratio of Japanese and Korean life insurance
13
It seems possible to investigate labor costs in both Korea and Japan, as they use quite a
similar items for it. The amount of non-mandatory company welfare costs in Korea,
suggested here, were estimated in Year 2001, excluding retirement allowance stipulated as
mandatory company welfare item, while that of Japan were estimated in Year 2002,
including retirement allowance which is normally excluded from mandatory company
welfare items (Ministry of Labor, 2002; MHLW, 2002).
22
markets to all life insurance market in OECD countries, as reported in 1966, ranked at
the second highest (market share: 26.9%) and at the sixth (market share: 4.63%)
respectively (OECD, 1998). Therefore, it is necessary to take a wider view of the size of
private insurance programmes bought and consumed in the market, especially with
reference to health insurance and pension.
4. Reconstitution of Household-related Criteria
Esping-Andersen measured household roles in welfare provision mainly by
means of how households care for the elderly and children and how long women spend
doing housework (1999:57-67). According to a recent comparative study on income per
household in East Asia, ‘private income transfer' between family members is seen as
one of the major characteristics of welfare provision in this region. The data collected
via a survey in the mid 1990s shows that 44.3% of elderly Korean’s income and 53.2%
of elderly Taiwanese’s income came from their children, and about 4% of the total
household income was made by private income transfer in both Korea and Taiwan
(Kwon, 1999). Hence, such private income transfers within households should be
included as one criteria of welfare regime classification. This will guarantee that we
have a correct picture of the characteristics of the household's role in welfare provision
in East Asian countries.
VI. Conclusion
The contemporary world of comparative social policy study has paid increasing
attention to social welfare in East Asia, with major interest directed toward a possible
way of constructing East Asian welfare regimes as comparable to the western one. As
discussed above, however, a series of research studies that aimed to do this are primarily
based on Esping-Andersen's
welfare regime typology, involving a serious
methodological mistake in its application. Inevitably, the Esping-Andersen's welfare
regime typology cannot be set free from its methodological limits. However, this is not
only the case in the arena of methodological application. Applying the typology in an
attempt to classify East Asian welfare system as 'a fourth model' also revealed a critical
23
mistake. In order to avoid these mistakes, it is important to construct a new set of
attributes of the welfare regime classification and measurement criteria. While
employing the Esping-Andersen's criteria of the welfare state typology for the
discussion of the welfare regime in the West, scholars used different criteria to define
the East Asian welfare regime as different from the western one. It may be misleading
to discuss different welfare phenomena by the one team of welfare regime.
Thus, it is difficult to identify the real characteristics of East Asian welfare
regime by simply using the classification criteria of welfare regime types suggested by
Esping-Andersen. In this vein, this paper argued that the Esping-Andersen's criteria
should be expanded and reconstructed in order to explore any possibility of defining
East Asia's own welfare regime. For this sake, this paper emphasized the importance of
building a new set of criteria that enable us to identify the characteristics of the East
Asian welfare system. Of course, if these criteria are used to categorize East Asian
welfare regimes, it is possible that East Asian countries may be clustered as a distinct
welfare regime, or they could belong to one of the ‘Three Welfare Regimes'. In some
sense, the term ‘East Asian Welfare Regime' itself implies that East Asian countries are
characterized by a welfare regime, but it is not so easy to find out any appropriate
expression about that. Nonetheless, it is necessary to replace the word ‘East Asia' by
another word as it implies geographic concepts. Of course, if the new criteria of the
welfare regime classification are constructed as suggested in this paper, they should be
applicable for both the East and the West welfare systems, as this will not only shed
light in applying the Esping-Andersen's criteria in a correct way, but will also help us
identify the attributes of the East Asian welfare system as different from the western
ones.
24
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